


But Maybe It's Best You've Forgotten

by Cixalea



Series: The Legends of EXO Planet [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gen, MAMA MV, MAMA Powers, MAMA!AU, OT12 - Freeform, Platonic Relationships, Superpowers, no beta we die like men, soul bonds, you can pry ot12 from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 12:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18591658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cixalea/pseuds/Cixalea
Summary: Sehun, being the youngest Legend, can’t recall as much as his older brothers about life on EXO Planet. Because of that, Sehun’s earliest memories were more a patchwork of his older brothers’ stories rather than anything he can remember with confidence himself.





	But Maybe It's Best You've Forgotten

Sehun thinks the conversation may have originally come up because the Wind Legend wondered out loud if it was weird that he forgot how long they had been laying in the grass and staring up at the blue, blue sky, so Xiumin bragged to him how his memories from before time was invented, before Tao was created, were clear and perfect—that he remembers with crystal clarity the very instance he was snapped into existence.

Sehun prodded Xiumin to continue talking on the topic, the blue, blue drink they had right before this made them all loose lipped, so maybe it would get his oldest brother to open up about what it was like back then. Maybe it would jog lose the eons and millennia that the Wind Legend had forgotten.

It was then that Sehun learned for the first time that Xiumin, Luhan, and Kris were the only Legends created simultaneously, willed into creation in tandem. The Ice Legend recalled there was no confusion about himself suddenly coming to be. He was “born” with complete understanding of how he fit into the grand scheme of everything. They were there to love the Tree of Life. Their queen. Their  _ mama. _

They were her firsts.

“And unlike many of the creations who followed,” it was unclear if the look Xiumin shot Sehun was serious or not under the haze of the blue drink, “we were brought into the universe without consequence.”

Xiumin lazily described living on the platform with the Tree of Life, laying fretlessly on her roots, sitting peacefully against her trunk. The Tree was endeared by her creations’ desires to be close to her, but she wanted them to create too.

Xiumin said he was eager to make her happy, and he immediately set about creating what was in retrospect an ugly moon-sized block of ice, but like a young child, he was happy to show off to their majesty what he had made.

“I formed this for you,  _ mama _ .” Those were the first words Xiumin said he “spoke.”

Sehun asked why Xiumin said it with air quotes, and the elder turned over on his side to poke Sehun on the nose because he was such a little baby. Then the Ice Legend blurst out into hysterical giggles.

After Sehun pulled him back from the laughing fit, Xiumin explained that the Legends and the Tree of Life talked to each other in their minds back then.

“One can’t speak without air, and before you, Sehunie, there wasn’t any. We weren’t physically capable of spoken communication back then.”

Sehun nodded slowly. It made sense in a way, but it was so hard for him to imagine. He needed another sip of the blue drink. “So what did the Tree think of your ugly ice block?”

Xiumin chuckled and twirled a piece of grass between his fingers. He remembered the Tree was proud of him actually. "Little did I know that I just laid the foundations of EXO Planet," Xiumin said proudly.

The Ice Legend said Luhan wanted to contribute too. With Luhan’s creation came gravity, and so he moved Xiumin’s ice block away and tethered the block with gravity to the Tree of Life’s platform so that it slowly orbited around her.

Xiumin said he remembers not being insulted at all at the modifications Luhan made. He literally couldn’t be jealous since negative emotions hadn’t been created yet.

He remembers the Tree of Life saying something about how they should go there to the ice world to play. All three of them were apprehensive though. She was their everything. How could playing possibly be any better than just being with her?

But she insisted. It would make her happy to see them having fun.

So Xiumin said that Kris grabbed him and Luhan by their wrists and flew them up to the ice block. And as always, the Tree was right. It was fun.

Xiumin almost snorted blue drink out his nose as he thought of how ridiculous it was back then. He said that their favorite game was one that Luhan made up. Luhan would squish the three of them into the ice in high gravity one moment and then let them bounce, bounce, bounce with low gravity the next. Xiumin added that they played with his power too. He polished the ice block until the whole thing was smooth and perfectly round. They slipped and skated, fascinated by the speed they could slide and laughed when they bumped into each other.

Sehun couldn’t help it. He joined Xiumin in belly laughing at the thought of his oldest brothers playing children's games.

"And we never got tired of it." Xiumin shrugged once he got a hold of himself. They wouldn’t know exhaustion and fatigue until D.O’s creation after all. And there was no time then either as there was no Tao. So they just played until the Tree of Life called them back.

When Sehun made a comment about how nice it must have been back then, the Ice Legend made a tired humming sound of approval.

“I think that was the happiest I’ve ever been.” It was the most lucid either of them had sounded all day.

 

* * *

 

 

The nurses always left quickly after giving them the IVs. There was no need to monitor them when the blue drug they injected into the saline bag inevitably knocked them out after a few minutes.

Minutes did not exist before Tao was created, so they kept track of everything through events back then, or so Kris told Sehun one time when they were the only two left in the testing room.

While the older Legends weren't always eager to reminisce about the past, Kris in particular was opposed to it, and Sehun remembered the only reason he got anything out of him was because the older was heavily medicated.

Kris said that the biggest events were always whenever the Tree of Life created. 

“The first time she said she was making more Legends, all three of us were so excited,” Kris slurred. How could they not? They loved the Tree of Life, and anything she did was wonderful.

Sehun tried to imagine serious Kris excited about anything, but Sehun found he was too tired to laugh out loud.

While Kris's eyes tinged bluer and bluer from the injection, he recalled Suho and Lay were the next set of Legends to be created, but neither were pulled entirely from nonexistence like the first three of them were.

“The Tree of Life said that she was going to use Xiumin as a template to create her next Legend.”

They weren’t sure what that meant at the time, but suddenly there stood a fourth member next to Xiumin. She said his name was Suho.

Kris told Sehun that Xiumin was of course particularly curious about the newcomer who was based off of him. They didn’t look alike. At least not in any way that was significantly different from the other Legends. But that didn’t matter. He was created by the Tree of Life the same as them, and that was all that they cared about.

He said that Luhan grabbed the new being’s hands and bounced happily. “‘May we go play with him! I bet it will be even more fun with four of us!’”

Sehun hummed happily at the Flight Legend's imitation of Luhan's voice.

But the Tree of Life stopped them. She wasn’t finished. There was still another to come.

Kris thought at that moment he was going to burst with happiness. Another? There would be five of them?! He had never been more excited.

Sehun was shocked at the honesty.

Just as the Tree of Life said, there appeared a fifth: Lay.

Kris's jaw hardened and he gripped the white gurney rail tighter. Lay’s creation would carry the biggest consequence of them all.

“Whose template did you use to make him,  _ mama _ ?” Kris remembers asking, and mimicked how he extended his hand to greet the newest Legend.

But he paused a little as if working up the courage to say the next words, letting the heart monitor beeping fill the silence until he was ready.

Kris took a big inhale. “She said, ‘I used myself.’”

The Flight Legend dropped his hand onto the gurney padding with a thud. He described that he was overcome with an emotion he’d never felt before then, and that he wasn’t sure he liked this new person. Here Kris was created from nothing, but Lay was created from the Tree of Life herself. Did that make the newest Legend her favorite?

Sehun watched as the elder threw an arm over his eyes, and he wondered for a moment if the silence meant that the blue drug had already pulled Kris into unconsciousness. Sehun startled when he started to talk again.

“‘Wow! Your eyes are red, Kris.’”

Even underneath all the unusually heavy emotion in Kris's voice, he could tell that he was imitating Suho's tone.

The Flight Legend said he panicked when a wave of disappointment washed over the Tree. The onslaught of new emotions was confusing him, but he figured it was probably because he didn’t like the new Legend.

Kris quickly extended his hand up again, miming the experience as if it were happening there again in front of him. “‘I’m sorry, Lay. My name is Kris, and I want you to come play with us.’”

He looked over and pierced his gaze into Sehun, looking momentarily very awake. "I told the first lie ever."

He paused to let that fact sink in before he continued. Lay didn’t know it was a lie. His face brightened, and he accepted the hand. And the Tree of Life’s mood lightened again.

“‘Nevermind. They aren’t red anymore.’”

Sehun started to feel a little lightheaded. The blue drug was beginning to take effect.

Kris said he thought he would ask the Tree of Life later what Suho meant. First he had to make sure she wasn’t upset.

He flew everyone up to Xiumin’s ice moon, but playing wasn’t the same as before.

“At first, Xiumin seemed thrilled at seeing Suho’s power.”

Sehun collapsed down onto the gurney from his sitting position as the blue drug sapped his strength.

Water was just like Xiumin’s ice in many ways, Kris elaborated. It was smooth and clear and beautiful. But water was soft and not rigid.

However, when Suho’s water met Xiumin’s ice, it created cracks. Xiumin was horrified.

“‘What have you done? I made this for  _ mama _ !’”

Sehun felt his vision get blurry, but through sheer will remained conscious so he could hear the rest of the story. He knew this would likely be the only time he’d get Kris to talk about this.

Kris thankfully continued. He said that Suho apologized and tried to remove his water, but it had already frozen and become melted to Xiumin’s ice. He couldn’t move it anymore.

When Xiumin sent a glare at Suho, Kris saw his eyes. They were red.

“It was Lay’s fault,” Kris breathed out.

He explained that with Lay’s creation came the power of healing. But in order for there to be healing, there had to be pain—physical and emotional. When the Tree of Life created Lay the healer, they experienced negative emotions for the first time, and that was just the exact foothold that the Red Force needed.

Kris punched the gurney padding as if to use his anger to keep the blue drug’s effects at bay. “And the very fabric of reality would never be the same again.”

Sehun felt a little defensive at how Kris was talking about Lay, their own brother, despite how true it might have been. It's not like he could have helped any of that. But before he could say anything, he felt the claws of sleep tugging him down. Despite attempts to move his mouth, urge his vocal chords to life, he couldn't muster the strength.

He slowly blinked up at Kris with pleading eyes as if the older could help him in some way.

"Don't fight it, Sehun. Just sleep."

So Sehun slept.

 

* * *

 

 

As water was created with Suho, so also was the  _ need _ for water created. Thirst was the first biological need, and it was a little difficult adjusting to drinking at regular intervals. Even the Tree of Life needed it.

“That was the first time we started to actually become the Tree of Life’s caretakers,” Luhan explained, taking another swig from his water bottle.

Sehun liked the road trip he was on with Luhan for many reasons, but it made him particularly happy that the long expanses of time they spent together on the open road meant that there was lots of time to talk.

Sehun reminded the elder of the exit number they needed, and Luhan continued from where he left off.

He said that Xiumin struggled with the fact that his ice would not substitute for water though they were made of the same things. And Kris was still put off by Lay’s creation and the unpleasant emotions that came with him.  
“So what happened when Baekhyun, Chen, and Chanyeol were made?”

Luhan hummed, amused that Sehun wanted to hear more. “When the Tree of Life announced she would create again, everyone was...uneasy,” he said slowly.

No longer did they find the Tree of Life’s actions only wonderful. And Lay specifically got anxious when the Tree of Life said that the next Legend she would make would be templated after Lay.

“Kris and I were made first,” Luhan said between bites of a snack bar, “so naturally we thought we should have had a template before Lay did. I know our eyes had to be bright red then.”

“But if she had made your template next, Kai would have been one of the older Legends. And that’s just so wrong.”

Luhan laughed. “Yeah. That would be different alright. Instead we had to deal with the Light Trio.”

Baekhyun was the name given to her next creation. His power was fascinating, and they were all understandably entranced by light, Luhan recalled. Though its opposite that had also been created with him, darkness, was a little scary.

The Tree of Life was particularly happy with Baekhyun’s powers, and she immediately created another who could also wield a kind of light: Chen.

Chen came from nothing, but that did not sway the jealous red eyes of the original Legends.

“It seemed like the Tree of Life had a favorite power now, you know?” The Gravity Legend shrugged. “They were taking her attention away.”

The Tree of Life was delighted at successfully creating another light wielder that was similar yet completely different, but she saw the way her Legends looked at her Lightning Legend. She had an idea.

She created yet another, announcing to Kris that this one was taken from his template.

“It was probably to try to win Kris over. Didn’t think he could dislike his own template, but….” Luhan’s laugh was a little forced.

All Kris could see in Chanyeol was another one who wielded a type of light. Yet another he would have to compete with for the Tree’s attention.

The Tree of Life sensed with sadness that her precious Legends were upset, so she decided she would not create any more. She sent them to go play, but as she watched them argue, her heart started to wither for the first time.

Sehun sat up a little straighter. “She was withering?”

Luhan took his eyes off the road for a second to give the younger Legend a concerned look. “...Surely you couldn’t have forgotten that much?”

The words were gentle, but Sehun felt devastated anyway. He hung his head, breaking away eye contact to gaze absently down at the unfolded map in his lap.

Luhan got quiet and reached over, rustling a hand through the Wind Legend’s hair. “Don’t worry. It’ll come back to you.”

Sehun’s vision started to blur.

“We need to stop to refuel soon.”

Sehun nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I think we can go ahead and stop. We’re less than an hour away from the path of totality. And a good three hours from the start of the eclipse.”

The Gravity Legend gave Sehun a small smile before he put on the camper’s turn signal and pulled off onto the nearest exit.

 

* * *

 

 

When Sehun suggested that their team captain take an ice bath, jersey number 1 refused on the grounds that he hated the cold.

“You’ll regret it at practice tomorrow if you don’t. You were really roughed up tonight when we allowed you get sacked in the fourth quarter. Besides, didn’t you use to live on an ice planet?” Sehun joked, taking the liberty and starting to fill the tub for his older brother.

“With Chanyeol and Chen’s creations, it became hard to live on Xiumin’s ice planet,” Suho said as he vacantly watched the tub fill.

Ice was suddenly cold somehow, he explained. Xiumin’s world had never been unpleasant before, and they knew it had to be either the Lightning or Fire Legend’s fault.

“Shot in the dark that it was Chanyeol, right?”

Suho nodded with a light smile. Said they figured it out when Chanyeol heard their complaining and declared, ‘Here! My fire is not cold,’ before billowing a huge pillar of fire out of his hands. The heat was the opposite of the cold, so the new disparity—temperature—was obviously his fault.

The Water Legend winced in pain as he pulled the jersey over his head and threw it in the laundry bin. “You can guess how well Xiumin took to Chanyeol melting part of his planet.”

Sehun smirked as he pictured how that must have gone down. He pulled off his cleats without bothering to untie them and just let his aching feet breathe for a second.

“With the creation of more Legends, the Tree of Life had more needs,” Suho continued while he pulled off his shoulder guards and sat them on the locker room bench next to him. “She required warmth and light now, so she necessitated more care anyway. So we abandoned the ice planet, and lived on the platform with the Tree of Life.”

This displeased the Tree, and she probably knew she could create another Legend who could fix their problems, provide the missing puzzle piece, but she knew it would cause more jealousy between them, so that’s why she remained silent.

When the Legends were one-on-one with the Tree of Life, they were happy. It was when they interacted with each other that their moods soured.

Suho started to unwrap his wrist brace slowly.

It physically pained the Tree of Life to see them fight, and Lay even warned them that it hurt the Tree of Life that they were not friends.

“But instead of making up, we avoided each other.”

So the Tree of Life’s heart continued to dry.

Sehun still found it hard to believe that his brothers disliked each other to such an extent in the past. He shoved his helmet in the locker next to his extra set of gloves.

Everything came to a head when Chen accidentally struck the Tree of Life with a lightning bolt.

“He did what?” Sehun was shocked that no one had mentioned that before.

“Chen doesn’t like talking about it for obvious reasons. And after we purified the Red Force’s evil out of ourselves, we found we didn’t like talking about it either.” Suho turned the faucet off and scooped ice into the tub. “Her branches caught on fire, and I tried to put the fire out as fast as I could, but the leaves burned up quickly, and she had awful black scorches on her limbs that Lay couldn’t heal.”

Chen found himself immediately surrounded by seven sets of red eyes. He was terrified and shamed. He grasped one of the Tree of Life’s roots and begged her to erase him.

Suho dumped the ice scoop back in the freezer and stood there for a moment.

“‘I’m a mistake. I hurt you,  _ mama. _ Please send me back to oblivion!’”

Sehun’s hands shook as he imagined the scene.

“The scary thing,” Suho whispered, “is that we all agreed. We wanted him gone. It’s terrifying. We were so messed up by the Red Force’s evil that we wanted  _ Chen _ dead.”

Suho’s face scrunched up in pain when he hopped in the tub. Sehun wasn’t sure if it was the Water Legend’s nerves reeling from the cold temperature or if it was from the memory. 

The Tree of Life refused to undo one of her own creations. Instead, she offered a compromise.

“‘I can create another Legend from your template—one who will never be able to be harmed by your power, Chen. And he will also create a space for you all to live on your planet that is not ice, but a middle ground of strength. A strong floor where all of your forces can exist at once safely.’” The Water Legend sank down a little deeper into the tub.

“D.O.”

Suho didn’t confirm. They both knew Sehun was right.

The other Legends were curious as well, and agreed to the compromise.

Xiumin’s ice moon became a proper planet—EXO Planet—with D.O’s help. It was beautiful and a paradise. Suho had a place to put his rivers and lakes. Chanyeol had somewhere to contain lava, and Xiumin, his ice caps. Lay created plants that looked like the Tree of Life and took root in D.O’s soil. And of course Chen could strike the dirt all he wanted and no harm came to it.

“We were actually happy again with one of the Tree of Life’s creations, but it was because D.O gave us space to be apart rather than us finally getting along.”

And while their spirits were high, the Tree of Life joyfully created another whom she had been thinking about. He was her most creative yet, and he would be the last Legend to be plucked entirely from nothingness into existence.

Tao’s appearance confused the Legends. He was smaller than them—less than half their size. He was slow and clumsy, and he couldn’t even communicate or walk properly.

“I remember Kris asked if Tao was broken because he just crawled right off the Tree of Life’s platform and dropped into the abyss and Kris had to save him.”

The Tree of Life explained that Tao was young, a baby. That he would get as big as them, but they just had to be patient.

The Legends were confused by Tao, and they certainly didn’t like the idea having to take care of him constantly, but the Tree of Life was more than thrilled. She loved the concept of baby Legends. And she wanted desperately to create more.

“‘Would any of you like to start again as babies like Tao? You would retain your memories of course.’”

One of Sehun’s thick eyebrows rose. “Did any of you do it?”

“Of course not. And the Tree was of course disappointed.”

That was when Luhan spoke up.

“He didn’t have a Legend templated after himself yet, so he requested that if she absolutely  _ had _ to make another Legend….”

“You got Kai.”

“We got Kai. A second baby Legend to run around after.”

Suho reclined more until he was finally submerged to his neck in the tub despite his shivering.

It wasn’t long before even D.O fell out of the other Legends’ good graces. For they discovered that with the creation of strength came fatigue, hunger, and the need for sleep—leaving even more opportunity for arguments to arise.

Tao’s time came with decay and entropy. As time passed, Tao and Kai grew bigger as the Tree of Life said, yet the Legends found their new memories were not perfect forever, D.O’s mountains crumbled, and Lay’s plants died after a while no matter what he did.

This was the part that Sehun heard the other Legends talk about the most. The part where they were exhausted from constantly having to repair their planet that decayed too fast and to take care of the helpless baby Legends who grew too slow. 

“With the invention of time, we found we wanted to spend all of it with the Tree of Life, but we argued and fought with each other for our turn.”

Obviously the Tree could feel she was dying. Her roots, her Legends loved her but not each other. They couldn’t work together and thusly could not fulfill their purposes. So her heart was withering.

“In a last desperate attempt to save her own life, she secretly formed her last Legend, you, Sehun—templated after Tao without anyone’s knowledge—and hid you from the rest of us.”

Sehun remembers being told briefly about this part before—that the Tree of Life cared for him herself thinking that if Sehun never met the other Legends that he could love her as she intended. She would have one root that could keep her alive.

However, she could not hide him for long. For with the creation of each Legend came a change in the fabric of reality. It wasn’t a subtle thing, and so the eleven Legends shortly came looking for the newest one whose creation brought an atmosphere to their planet and with it the necessity of breathing and possibility of suffocation.

“Even back then, I was ever the pragmatist. ‘You can’t care for him, _ mama _ . He will need water and food, both of which you can’t give him.’”

She pleaded with them to leave him with her on her platform. When they made their rounds to care for the Tree of Life, they could give Sehun water and whatever else he needed then too. There was no need for them to take him.

But the Legends brushed her off. It would be easier for them to take care of Sehun if he was on EXO Planet with them.

“I picked you up, but I’ll never forget your screams. You very nearly blew up a typhoon while weeping and reaching out for her as if she had arms that could hold you, protect you from us.”

Suho looked so utterly ashamed that Sehun felt compelled to apologize.

“You were a baby and all you could see were strangers with red eyes trying to take you away from your home. It was only natural.”

There was a long silence between the two of them, and Sehun told him he didn’t have to keep talking about this.

“No. We don’t know if your memory will ever come back, Sehun. You deserve to hear it all.” He then rose out of the tub and grabbed the towel that hung nearby.

He dried himself quickly and wrapped the towel around himself tightly before taking a seat on the bench next to the younger.

“She loved you Sehun. As we took you to EXO Planet, she pleaded with us that you were the only thing she had left. But that only made us want to take you away from her all the more.”

The Tree of Life stayed atop the platform as always and watched her Legends orbit around her as the last bit of her drying heart withered. With no roots to supply her with nourishment, with no one to truly love her, she was unable to continue on.

Her leaves fell. Her branches shrunk. Her heart grew dry.

Then the Tree of Life fell comatose.

“I’ve never regretted anything more in my life. And I’m so sorry for what we did to you.”

Sehun was a whirlwind of emotions. He just couldn’t believe that the older brothers he had come to know and love so dearly would do something so horrible. And not just to anyone, but to  _ him _ .

Sehun sniffled and wiped some of the steam of water that poured from his eyes away with the back of his hand. “Thank you for telling me.”

Suho’s face was still strained with emotion, but he managed a tiny smile. “Someday we’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

The Wind Legend had a lot to unpack from what he just learned, but he found he couldn’t quite hate his brothers. They’d been through so much together since , sacrificed for each other, done such a complete 180 that Sehun knew in his heart that he’d already forgiven them.

“You can let me drive your sports car for a week?” He wasn’t about to waste an opportunity like this though.

Suho almost fell off the bench from laughing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at telling the EXO superhero/aliens story. I'm of course using the music videos and teasers, but I'm also relying especially heavily on the concert VCRs as I think they tell more of the lore of story than the music videos do.
> 
> The section that you just read—the time before the Tree was split—is probably the part that is least elaborated part in any of the EXO story canon, so this was the part that I felt had the most liberties to take.
> 
> How are you liking my interpretation? Is there something you think I left out/got wrong or something you really liked? Let me know! I really enjoy talking about this stuff.
> 
> Looking forward to it.


End file.
